Short-range wireless beacon transmitter devices are used at various sites, such as shops, restaurants, cultural venues and sport arenas, to attract attention from nearby users of mobile communication devices such as mobile terminals like smartphones or tablets. The abbreviated notion mobile devices will be used herein when referring to such mobile communication devices.
For instance, the iBeacon technology from Apple allows for mobile devices to understand their location on a micro-local scale, and also allows delivery of hyper-contextual content to the users of mobile devices based on their current location. The iBeacon technology is based on the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) standard, and more particularly on Generic Access Profile (GAP) advertising packets. There are several other kinds of short-range wireless beacon technologies, for instance AltBeacon, URIBeacon and Eddystone, which are also based on BLE and GAP.
A basic short-range wireless beacon communication system is shown in FIG. 1A. A beacon transmitter device B1 repeatedly broadcasts a short-range wireless beacon signal (also known as a beacon advertisement signal) BA1 in a 31-byte GAP BLE packet. The beacon signal BA1 contains a 128-bit universally unique identifier, UUID. The beacon signal BA1 may also include a 16-bit major portion and a 16-bit minor portion. The beacon signal BA1 identifies a beacon region associated with the beacon transmitter device B1. Whereas, as is commonly known, a geographical region is an area defined by a circle of a specified radius around a known point on the Earth's surface, a beacon region is in contrast an area defined by a mobile device's proximity to one or more beacon transmitter devices.
In some implementations, the beacon region is represented by the UUID, the major portion and the minor portion in the beacon signal BA1 In other implementations, the beacon region is represented by the UUID and the major or minor portion in the beacon signal BA1. In still other implementations, the beacon region is represented by the UUID alone.
In FIG. 1A, a second beacon transmitter device B2 also repeatedly broadcasts a short-range wireless beacon signal BA2 for the same beacon region as the first beacon transmitter device B1.
A conventional beacon transmitter device is typically static in the sense that it is permanently placed at a stationary location at a site for which beacon-triggered services are to be provided. Mobile devices nearby may receive the short-range wireless beacon signal BA1 if they are within range of the beacon transmitter device B1.
To this end, each mobile device is provided with an application program, app, which is configured to detect and react on short-range wireless beacon signals, such as beacon signal BA1, with support from the underlying operating system. In one known beacon technology, the apps in mobile devices can detect and react on beacons in two ways, monitoring and ranging. Monitoring enables the app to detect movement in and out of the beacon region (i.e., whether the mobile device is within or outside of the range of any of the beacon transmitter devices with which the beacon region is associated). Hence, monitoring allows the app to scan for beacon regions. Ranging is more granular and provides a list of beacon transmitter devices in range, together with their respective received signal strength, which may be used to estimate a distance to each of them. Hence, ranging allows the app to detect and react on individual beacon transmitter devices in a beacon region.
These apps may be handled by the operating system of the mobile device in different modes. The most prominent mode is the active mode, in which the app executes in the foreground and is typically capable of interacting with the user of the mobile device and also to communicate with an external device such as a server via the short-range wireless beacon interface and/or another communication interface. As regards short-range wireless beacon communication, ranging only works when the app is in active mode.
In FIG. 1A, two mobile devices in the active mode are shown as A1 and A2. When, for instance, mobile device A1 receives the beacon signal BA1, the app in the mobile device A1 may detect that it has entered the beacon region from the UUID (and the major/minor as the case may be) contained in the beacon signal BA1, and react as appropriate in some way which is beneficial to the user and/or the host of the beacon transmitter device B1 and which often involves interaction between the app in the mobile device A1 and a service provider SP over a communication network NW. A system server SS may also be included in some implementations.
Examples of such beneficial use include, without limitation, determining a current approximate position of the mobile device A1 by retrieving a predefined position of the beacon transmitter device B1 from the service provider SP or by cross reference with local lookup data, or retrieving a content from the service provider SP.
A mobile device where the app is in active mode is referred to as an active mobile device in this document. An active mobile device A1, A2 may receive and react to additional transmissions of the beacon signal BA1 from the beacon transmitter device B1; this may be useful for instance if the content associated with the host of the beacon transmitter device B1 is updated or changed.
Furthermore, an active mobile device may receive and react to beacon signals from other beacon transmitter devices nearby, such as beacon transmitter device B2 in FIG. 1A, provided of course that they are within range of the respective beacon transmitter device (see mobile device A2 with respect to beacon transmitter device B2 in FIG. 1A), or move closer to it (mobile device A1 and beacon transmitter device B2). This is so irrespective of whether the different beacon transmitter devices B1 and B2 advertise the same beacon region (i.e. contain the same UUID and major/minor in the respective beacon signals BA1 and BA2, like in FIG. 1A), or different beacon regions (provided that the app is configured to monitor for such different beacon regions). It is to be noticed that the same beacon region (e.g. same UUID) is very often used for different beacon transmitter devices hosted by the same host, such as within the same supermarket, arena, fastfood restaurant, etc.
The operating system of the mobile devices may also handle apps in a passive mode. A purpose of the passive mode is power preservation, since the mobile devices are typically powered by batteries and since it is a general technical ambition to maximize the operational time of a mobile device between successive charging sessions. In the passive mode, the app executes in the background or is only installed on the mobile device. Unlike ranging which only works when the app is in active mode, monitoring works when the app is in active mode as well as when the app is in passive mode.
Transitions between active mode and passive mode may be based on user interaction, user preference settings in the app or the operating system, or program logic in the app or the operating system.
A mobile device where the app is in passive mode is referred to as a passive mobile device in this document. In the passive mode, the app typically cannot interact with the user via the user interface, nor communicate with a server or another device—except for the following. Just like active mobile devices, a nearby passive mobile device (such as P1 in FIG. 1A) may monitor for a beacon region and hence receive a short-range wireless beacon signal (such as BA1 or BA2) if it is within range of the beacon transmitter device in question (e.g. B1 or B2). However, unlike active mobile devices, after a short beacon scanning period in the monitoring, during which the beacon transmitter device B1 or B2 is discoverable and also communication with a server or another device is possible, and unless it switches to active mode, the passive mobile device P1 will not be able to react to additional beacon signals for the same beacon region from the beacon transmitter device B1 or B2.
Instead, after the short beacon scanning period (which typically lasts for some seconds, such as about 10 seconds), the passive mobile device P1 will be “ignorant” or “deaf to”, i.e. not react on, additional beacon signals for the same beacon region for as long as it stays in passive mode and continues to detect such beacon signals, for instance because it remains within range of the beacon transmitter device B1 (or B2) and continues to detect its beacon signal. Only once the passive mobile device P1 has not received the beacon signal BA1 or BA2, or any other beacon communication which advertises the same beacon region, for a certain time, such as 1-15 minutes, the passive mobile device P1 will again be reactive to the beacon signal BA1 or BA2, or any other beacon communication which advertises the same beacon region.
An example situation to illustrate the above is given as a schematic timeline diagram in FIG. 1B. The beacon transmitter device (BTD) B1 transmits the beacon signal BA1 at a certain periodicity, with a short time Δt between each transmission of the beacon signal BA1 at steps S12, S22, S24 and S32. The time Δt between successive transmissions of the beacon signal BA1 is typically in the order of 1 second. A beacon market analysis performed by the present applicant has found that the beacon transmission periodicity is at about 1 Hz or higher for a number of beacon transmitter devices from different manufacturers, which means that the time Δt between successive transmissions of the beacon signal is 1 second or less.
During the short beacon scanning period S10 of the monitoring, the passive mobile device P1 in FIG. 1B will therefore be able to detect and react on the first transmission S12 of the beacon signal BA1. The reaction may, for instance, involve reporting to an external device such as a server SS that the beacon region identified by the beacon signal BA1 has been entered, see steps S14 and S16. Following this, the passive mobile device P1 will enter into a “deafened out” state S20 in which it will not be capable to react on the subsequent transmissions of the beacon signal BA1, see steps S22, S24, . . . . The “deafened out” state S20 will last for a certain time, which in a typical prior art implementation is at least 30 seconds to avoid false positives due to effects in the radio signal environment (e.g. multi-propagation delay). The “deafened out” state S20 will often last substantially longer than 30 seconds, sometimes as long as about 15 minutes depending on operational factors such as, for instance, battery level, power consumption or operating system scheduling in the passive mobile device.
When the “deafened out” state S20 is ended, there will again be a short beacon scanning period S30 of the monitoring performed by the passive mobile device P1. An exit event may be reported, as seen at S26, and processed by the receiving external device (e.g. the server SS) in step S28. During the beacon scanning period S30, the passive mobile device P1 will again be capable of detecting and reacting on a subsequent transmission S32 of the beacon signal BA1, but all of the intermediate transmissions S22, S24, . . . will have been ignored.
The present inventors have identified several problems associated with the above.
It is a problem for the host of the beacon transmitter device B1, since it will prevent the host from advertising for new or updated content. It is also a problem to the passive mobile device P1, since it will be deprived of an opportunity to react on the beacon signal BA1 during the period when it is “deafened out”.
This also means that when there are several beacon transmitter devices in the beacon region, a passive mobile device will be locked to the beacon transmitter device which it first discovered in the beacon region for as long as it stays within range of that beacon transmitter device's beacon signal. In the example of FIG. 1A, the passive mobile device P1 has first discovered the first beacon transmitter device B1 It then moves towards and enters into range of the second beacon transmitter device B2 while remaining within range of the first beacon transmitter device B1 Since the two beacon transmitter devices B1 and B2 broadcast their beacon signals BA1 and BA2 for the same beacon region (same UUID), the passive mobile device P1 will not be able to discover the second beacon transmitter device B2 and react to its beacon signal BA2.
This is, again, problematic both from the point of view of the passive mobile device P1 itself and for the host of the beacon transmitter devices, for the reasons explained above. In addition to this, the host of the beacon transmitter devices will not be able to track the movement of the passive mobile device P1 and broadcast an adapted service offer to the user of the passive mobile device P1 as a result of the movement (such as, for instance, offering a first content when the user is in a first subarea where the first beacon transmitter device B1 is located and a different, second content when the user is in a second subarea where the second beacon transmitter device B2 is located).
Moreover, when the mobile device app uses beacon-based localization functionality for the purpose of determining the location of the user with a high degree of accuracy by means of triangulation based on several stationary beacon transmitter devices covering the same beacon region, for instance indoors, there might be a problem if the mobile device is in passive mode. The passive mobile device P1 will not be able to update its estimated location caused by the movement, since the second beacon transmitter device B2 will not be detected when the passive mobile device P1 is still within range of the first beacon transmitter device B1.
In recent time, applications have been introduced which are based on mobile beacon transmitter devices rather than stationary. For instance, the present applicant has taken leadership in developing a new beacon-based technology which considerably facilitates for users of mobile devices which are proximate to each other to interact by, for instance, sharing content or conducting social media interaction.
The technology, which can be referred to as a “bubble” concept, is based on short-range wireless beacon broadcast messaging for establishing a dynamic, proximity-based network. Interaction between the users of the mobile devices in the network is supported by broadband communication with a server. Details are disclosed in the Swedish patent applications SE 1451203-2 “COMMUNICATION DEVICE FOR IMPROVED SHARING OF CONTENT”, SE 1400535-9 “SELECTIVE USER INTERACTION IN A DYNAMIC, PROXIMITY-BASED GROUP OF WIRELESS COMMUNICATION DEVICES”, SE 1451433-5 “DYNAMIC TIMING FOR IMPROVED COMMUNICATION HANDLING BETWEEN COMMUNICATION DEVICES”, SE 1451509-2 “COMMUNICATION DEVICE FOR IMPROVED ESTABLISHING OF A CONNECTION BETWEEN DEVICES”, SE 1550486-3 “TEMPORARY PROXIMITY BASED LICENSE FOR APPLICATION ACCESS” and SE 1551329-4 “IMPROVED ABILITY TO DETECT PASSIVE BEACON RECEIVER DEVICES IN A SHORT-RANGE WIRELESS BEACON COMMUNICATION SYSTEM”, the contents of which are incorporated herein in their entirety.
A short-range wireless beacon system based on mobile beacon transmitter devices is shown in FIG. 1C. While it can generally be used for various different purposes, the system in FIG. 1C is advantageously used for implementing the abovementioned bubble concept. To this end, each mobile device A1, A2, A3, P1 is provided with an app which (together with the operating system and hardware in the mobile device) is configured to handle transmission as well as reception of short-range wireless beacon signals. Hence, unlike the basic static beacon system in FIG. 1A, in the bubble system of FIG. 1C, each mobile device can act as a beacon transmitting device as well as a beacon receiving device. In FIG. 1C, the mobile device A1 is in active mode and repeatedly broadcasts its short-range wireless beacon signal BA1, containing a 128-bit universally unique identifier UUID and a device identifier uidA1 within the 32-bit major/minor portion of the beacon signal.
Other active mobile devices A2, A3 within a proximity zone (range) PZ1 of the mobile device BA1 can receive the beacon signal BAj, read the UUID and the uidA1, and as a result contact a system server SS over a communication network NW. The app in the receiving mobile device may decide, for instance based on user interaction, user preference settings and/or program logic in the app, to join the bubble of the mobile device A1, wherein the system server SS will register the receiving mobile device as belonging to the bubble of the mobile device A1. This is seen for the active mobile devices A2 and A3 in FIG. 1C. The users of the bubble members A1-A3 may then, for instance, share content or conduct social media interaction supported by a system server SS and/or a service provider SP over the communication network NW.
There may also be passive mobile devices within the proximity zone PZ1 of the active mobile device A1. This is seen for a passive mobile device P1 in FIG. 1C. The passive mobile device P1 will also receive the beacon signal BA1 as identified by the UUID. However, if the mobile device P1 remains in passive mode, it will not be able to react to additional transmissions of the beacon signal BA1 from the active mobile device A1 for the reasons explained above with respect to FIGS. 1A and 1B. The passive mobile device P1 will therefore not be susceptive of additional tranmissions of the beacon signal BA1 from the active mobile device A1 during the “deafened out” state.
This problematic situation is complicated further by the fact that in a bubble system, all active mobile devices are potential senders as well as receivers of beacon signals. As seen in FIG. 1D, the other active mobile devices A2 and A3 may also send respective beacon signal BA2 and BA3 to generate a respective bubble of nearby mobile devices within their respective proximity zones PZ2 and PZ3. These transmissions typically use the same common UUID, wherein the transmissions are individualized by including a respective device identifier uidA2 and uidA3 within the 32-bit major/minor portion of the respective beacon signal BA2 and BA3.
While the active mobile devices A1 and A3 may react to the beacon signal BA2 and hence join the bubble of the active mobile devices A2 (and correspondingly for the active mobile devices A1 and A2 with respect to the active mobile device A3), this is not so for the passive mobile device P1 since it has already detected the beacon signal BA1 of the first active mobile device A1 and thus been deafened out.
A problem from the point of view of the passive mobile device P1 is that it will not have any opportunity to hear the beacon signals BA2 or BA3 as identified by the common UUID and as a result not be given any opportunity to join other bubbles than the bubble of the first active mobile device A1. A problem from the point of view of the active mobile devices A2 and A3 is correspondingly that they will not be aware of the presence of the passive mobile device P1 within their proximity zones PZ2 and PZ3, nor announce their availability as bubble creators to the passive mobile device P1.
As is clear from the above description, the present inventor has identified several problems with beacon systems of the prior art. The inventive aspects which will be described in the following sections of this document are generally (but not necessarily) believed to be applicable to stationary as well as mobile beacon transmitter devices.